HMD Global, the company officially licensed to produce Nokia phones, has launched the new Nokia 8 Sirocco at the Mobile World Congress on Feb. 25. The new special edition flagship phone has surprising design features that may make it one of the best new releases of the year. However, some users may choose to forego the Sirocco in favor of similar but less expensive phones.

At first glance, the phone looks somewhat similar to the Samsung Galaxy 8. The Sirocco also has curved edges and an expansive, nearly full-screen display. However, what sets the Sirocco apart from the Galaxy 8 (or, indeed, most other phones) is that the Nokia flagship's body is made almost entirely of glass.

HMD designed the phone body to be 95 percent vacuum molded Gorilla Glass, adding a stainless steel chassis along the sides. The fingerprint reader was also moved to the back of the phone, which allowed the phone to have a larger screen.

The front of the phone bears a 5.5-inch OLED display with a QHD resolution. At the back, along with the fingerprint reader, is a vertical dual camera setup.

There is also 6 GB of random access memory and 128 GB of storage, and the phone runs on Android Oreo 8.0, powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset. The rear camera, meanwhile, has a 12-megapixel sensor and a 13-megapixel telephoto lens. This enables users to take photos with a bokeh effect by choosing the level of background blur. The front camera has 5 megapixels.

View a full list of specifications and other features here.

Potential buyers may be wondering how the Nokia 8 Sirocco compares to other similar high-end phones by other brands. While the Sirocco may be cheaper than the iPhone X in particular, whether or not the Sirocco can still perform at the same processing speed after months of use remains to be seen. The iPhone X, however, has proven that its processor can still work just as well after wear and tear.

The Snapdragon 835 processor may also be what prevents the Sirocco from being comparable to the Samsung Galaxy S9. While the Snapdragon 835 is by no means bad, it was a common feature in 2017 flagship phones. Thus, it may make the Sirocco at par with the older Galaxy 8 instead of the newer Samsung flagship.

This may mean that users may be able to find the same performance in cheaper phones with the same processor. Then again, the Sirocco is the sum of its parts, not just its processor.

The Nokia Sirocco will hit stores in April. However, HMD Global has not released an exact date, and has not revealed which territories will be the first to get their hands on the new flagship phone. The phone will cost 749€, although HMD has not yet announced how much the phone will cost in other places.